Source: The Holographic Universe, HarperCollinsPublishers, Michael Talbot 1991.
This podcast delves into the potential of the human mind to influence reality, drawing connections to the holographic model of the universe. It explores how phenomena like Carl Jung's concept of a collective unconscious and synchronicity hint at interconnectedness beyond typical understanding. The text highlights the impact of mental imagery and belief on physical health, referencing studies on cancer remission and the power of the placebo effect, even suggesting that physical ailments and healing processes could be viewed as dynamic, mind-influenced expressions within a holographic structure. Finally, it examines seemingly miraculous events, such as psychokinesis, fire immunity, materialization, and alterations of reality, suggesting these abilities might be latent in all humans and challenge conventional scientific paradigms about the fundamental nature of the body and reality itself.
1. The Holographic Model's Application to Psychology and the Psyche's Scope: The sources introduce the holographic model as having a significant impact on psychology. Unlike traditional psychiatric and psychoanalytic models that focus purely on the personal and biographical history of an individual, modern consciousness research, particularly influenced by the holographic concept, suggests a far grander view of the human psyche. This perspective, championed by researchers like Stanislav Grof, posits that the human psyche is essentially commensurate or equivalent in scale and scope with the entire universe and all of existence. David Bohm's work on the implicate order, which suggests an underlying interconnectedness of everything, is seen as providing a framework for understanding how this could be possible. This view fundamentally challenges the idea of the individual psyche as an isolated entity, proposing instead that it is connected to, and potentially contains information from, the vastness of existence, moving beyond a strictly personalistic understanding of the mind. Carl Jung's concept of a collective unconscious, shared by all people and containing universal symbols and themes found in mythologies and religions, is presented as an earlier idea that resonates with this expanded view of the psyche, as these symbols couldn't be explained solely by personal history. Robert M. Anderson Jr.'s idea of "personal resonance" attempts to explain why, if the psyche is commensurat with the universe, we aren't overloaded with information; he suggests we only tap into information in the implicate order that is directly relevant to our memories. The holographic model thus offers a potential explanation for how a personal mind could access or be part of a much larger, universal information field.
2. Dreams, Psi Phenomena, and Interconnectedness: Another major area where the holographic model is applied is in understanding dreams and related psychic phenomena (psi). Psychiatrist Montague Ullman, founder of the Dream Laboratory at Maimonides Medical Center, saw the holographic concept's suggestion of universal interconnectedness as relevant to his work. His ESP dream experiments conducted in the 1960s and 1970s are presented as empirical evidence suggesting that, in dreams, people may be able to communicate with each other in ways not currently explainable by traditional means. In these experiments, volunteers sleeping in one room sometimes dreamed images clearly influenced by paintings concentrated on by a person in another room. Ullman views dreams as potentially reflecting a greater underlying need to maintain species connectedness and counteracting humanity's tendency towards fragmentation. He speculates that the infinite information source represented by the implicate order might be the origin of the wisdom and imagery found in dreams, suggesting dreams could be a "natural transformation of the implicate into the explicate," standing the traditional psychoanalytic view of dream content (as arising from a primitive substratum) on its head. Beyond dreams, the sources discuss phenomena like remote viewing, telepathy, and psychokinesis (PK) as potentially being explained by holographic principles and the deep interconnectedness of consciousness. Experiments demonstrating remote viewing, where individuals accurately describe distant scenes, and studies showing physiological responses in one person linked to stimuli experienced by another elsewhere, suggest a widespread latent ability for non-local access to information or influence, fitting within a holographic framework where everything is interlinked at a fundamental level.
3. Accessing Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness and Universal Information: Stanislav Grof's extensive research into non-ordinary states of consciousness is highlighted as strongly supporting the holographic view of the psyche. Initially using the hallucinogen LSD for therapeutic applications, Grof found that patient experiences represented a "successive unfolding of deeper and deeper levels of the unconscious," rather than random stress reactions. His work, spanning over thirty years and thousands of sessions (including later non-LSD techniques), led him to conclude that the avenues of exploration available to the psyche through holographic interconnectedness are virtually endless. Patients in these states accessed information seemingly far beyond their personal knowledge or history. Examples include detailed descriptions of blood circulation and biochemical processes during their own embryonic/fetal period, thoughts and feelings their mothers had during pregnancy, and physical traumas the mother experienced. These accounts were sometimes verifiable by questioning the mothers. Patients also described experiences seeming to be racial or ancestral memories, identifying with different animals or even historical figures and cultures. Some gave richly detailed accounts of practices like Egyptian embalming or Taoist/Buddhist teachings, possessing knowledge completely at odds with their education or background. Grof concluded these experiences indicate a need for a drastic revision of existing psychological and psychiatric paradigms, suggesting consciousness can access a kind of "infinite subway system" connecting everything in the universe, which aligns with the holographic model's idea of comprehensive interconnectedness.
4. The Mind's Profound Influence on Physical Health and Reality: A significant portion of the sources details the powerful ability of the mind, including thoughts, beliefs, and imagery, to directly affect the physical body and seemingly influence external events. This is demonstrated through various phenomena:
◦Mental Imagery for Healing: Studies by researchers like O. Carl Simonton and Jeanne Achterberg showed that patients using mental imagery techniques to visualize radiation or cancer cells, or specific immune cells like neutrophils or T-cells, could positively influence the course of diseases like advanced cancer or increase the number of specific immune cells in their bodies.
◦The Placebo Effect: The placebo effect is presented as a potent example of the mind's control over the body. On average, 35% of people experience significant benefits from placebos across various conditions. Historical accounts show ineffective treatments succeeding, and even surgeries or seemingly harmless substances like purple dye for warts working, simply because of belief or expectation. The placebo effect supports a "holistic" view where mind and body are too interwoven to be treated independently.
◦Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD): MPD provides dramatic examples of mind-body control. Personalities within a single individual can have different brainwave patterns, allergies (switching a severe orange juice allergy on or off instantly), responses to drugs (drunkenness or drug effects vanishing upon switching personalities), visual acuity requiring different glasses, fluctuating physical marks like scars or burns, and even tumors appearing and disappearing. Multiples also sometimes heal faster than average, attributed by one multiple to continuous visualization and "parallel processing" by alternate personalities.
◦Miracles and Psychokinesis: Accounts of historical and contemporary miracles are discussed as potentially demonstrating the mind's ability to influence physical reality directly, possibly via psychokinesis (PK) mediated through the implicate order. Examples include stigmata (wounds appearing on the body mirroring Christ's, sometimes with physical phenomena like blood flowing counter to gravity), invulnerability to fire and physical harm (demonstrated by mystics, ascetics, and participants in rituals like firewalking or endurance tests during the Jansenist miracles), and materialization (objects appearing seemingly out of thin air, reported in poltergeist cases and associated with figures like Sathya Sai Baba). These events, witnessed by numerous people across different cultures and times, challenge conventional understanding of physical laws and suggest consciousness can "resonate" with the meanings guiding material systems to bring about seemingly impossible physical transformations.
5. The Holographic Organization of the Body and Energy Field: The sources explore the idea that the body itself, both physical and energetic, may be structured according to holographic principles, where information about the whole is contained within its parts.
◦Acupuncture Microsystems: The ancient Chinese art of acupuncture, based on connecting points on the surface to internal organs, is presented as evidence. More specifically, the discovery of acupuncture microsystems, such as the "little man in the ear" (found independently by Paul Nogier and ancient Chinese practitioners), where points on the ear map to the entire body, is seen as a holographic phenomenon. Research by Terry Oleson shows that electrical activity at points in the ear can accurately diagnose conditions elsewhere in the body, and stimulating these points can treat various ailments. This suggests the ear contains a holographic image of the whole body. Other microsystems are believed to exist in the hands, feet, tongue, and other body parts.